In general, information quantities of moving images are much larger than for still images, and when being used with communication media and storage media, compression technologies with higher efficiency than for still images are required. Preferable compression technologies for such purposes include, for example, video coding/decoding formats (MPEG1, MPEG2 and MPEG4, which are below referred to in general as MPEG) defined by the MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group), which is an international standards committee for image compression, the JPEG format (Joint Picture Experts Group) and the JPEG2000 format.
The H.264/AVC format (Advanced Video Coding: ISO/IEC14496-10, below referred to as AVC), which has been standardized in recent years, is a coding standard that improves compression performance by a factor of 1.5 to 2 in comparison with the conventional MPEG2 and MPEG4 video coding formats. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2006-229411 discloses an AVC intra coding format (below referred to as the AVC intra standard). The high compression performance of this format is achieved by improving efficiency of (1) an intra prediction scheme that utilizes correlations within (intra) a frame and (2) a variable block movement prediction scheme that utilizes relationships between (inter) frames. Using this method, even in a case in which intra coding of coding for still images is used for moving images, it has been verified that higher compression performance relative to JPEG or JPEG2000 can be achieved.
Meanwhile, for faster computing, processing is being performed using a plurality of cores or a plurality of CPUs. Processing using the plurality of cores or the plurality of CPUs is mainly implemented under the control of functions of an OS (operating system).
In processing of moving images, further increases in speed, with high reliability being maintained, are required. For improved reliability and speeding up of processing, moving images are processed using, for example, a plurality of cores or a plurality of CPUs under the control of an OS.